The Burrow

Some things must be shared.   It was calm and sunny when I took these photos. The sky was the blue I've only seen here, and the previous day's rain had filled the plants with all the water they wanted.   Walk out to the side yard with me, why don'cha?  These are ocotillo ( Fouquieria splendens). For most of the year they are tall, spiky brown sticks.  To the casual observer, they are dead.  But after a bit of rain, surprising things begin to happen.   Green leaves appear out of nowhere and spires of orange appear at the tips of the suddenly vibrant branches.   Luckily, some of my plants are still short enough that photographing them was easy.  Some of the plants in our neighborhood are 15' high. These flowers deserve a closer look. They just pop right open, unlike some of the desert flowers which unfurl. Kind of like New Year's Eve paper-poppers... or little rockets..... or what do they conjure for you? They are g...

G'ma and I went to hear Jane Goodall speak this afternoon.  After saying "Hello" in what I can only describe as  "a proper British accent," she said it again in Wild Chimp.  I've never heard anyone converse in Wild Chimp before, and I have to tell you that it sounds like a language I could learn to love... and like a language I could probably learn.  My sense is that grammar wouldn't be a huge part of the curriculum. Dr. Jane spoke for an hour this afternoon in the lovely outdoor atrium of Pima Community College's Northwest Campus, conveniently located right between G'ma's pod-castle and my house.  And before I wax eloquently about her and her work and her general wonderfulness, let me do the same about PCC and its student body.  Parking was abundant but crowded, yet no one was tailgating or honking or looking peeved.  The signage was ok, but I asked a group of boys (ok, young men.... I'm getting old.....they all look like boys to me.......

Words.... words.... words.... I'm so sick of words...... Eliza Doolittle echoes my sentiments exactly.  After SB1070 and our 1% sales tax and schools being thwarted by entrenched interests (in our military, the Taliban and Afghan villages ) and Board meetings that would not end, I cannot have another serious thought.  I just can't .   So, instead of considering the sorry state of the outside world, I am, as Pantagruel suggested, tending my own garden.   Here are the results of a lovely early morning and late afternoon walking around my yard and admiring the work that the creator (need a capital C?  whatever floats your boat... today, I'm not arguing with anyone about anything) and I have achieved.  The commentary is minimal.... I hope your joy is exponential. ***** Yellow is the predominant color right now. These damianitas have finally shown their true beauty. I must give myself some credit for their showy display; I pruned them carefully ...

I'm feeling put upon, so forgive me if I use you to whine about the world for a while.  Things are just out of sorts, it seems. I've been stewing about SB1070 since yesterday , and I'm no more comfortable with it today than I was then.  The lead photo in Monday's Arizona Daily Star has the requisite raised fist Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic but I don't see many raised fists here in Tucson.  I'm berating my legislators via email and phone, I'm spreading the word here in The Burrow, I'm feeling outraged.... and yet it all seems small and petty and meaningless. Why have the campuses not erupted?  Where is the fervor I remember?  Is it really that different 40 years later?  Have kids changed that much?  ***** I helped G'ma fill out her absentee ballot yesterday.  Arizona has a special election next month. There is only one question: Are you for or against the imposition of a 1% sales tax for the next three years?   Without it, ele...

I'm a blue girl living in a red state and I'm very confused.  Apparently, I am not the only one in this predicament.  Nance is wallowing in the same morass, and has offered to guide the winner of her "more names for shades of red" contest through the parts of South Carolina which delight her.  I've always been a fan of re-labeling, but I don't think she's going far enough.  I think we need a whole new paradigm. I walk the aisles of supermarkets surrounded by people who are all shades of brown.  Some find their color through tanning booths ( our newest addiction - I am having fun considering the treatments..... sunburns? long trips to Chicago in the winter?) but most seem to have been born that way.  I am hard pressed to determine ethnic origins as I pass them near the frozen foods; we're all shivering in our tank tops as we retrieve Popsicles and peas and pizzas.  Goose bumps are goose bumps no matter how colorful your skin might be. We have a lar...

The Big Cuter lives on Market Street in San Francisco.  I've written about Market Street, but I've never really thought about it.  I think I will begin to consider it with a different eye, now that I have seen this film.  It was taken by cameras mounted on the fronts of streetcars traveling east toward the Ferry Tower on the Embarcadero in the year 1905 -  just days before the earthquake. Have a nice weekend!

Grocery stores are some of my favorite places on earth.   There are the mom-and-pop corner markets in New York City, shelves stocked with goods reflecting the ethnicity of the owners.  There are the mega-markets filled with generic and recognizable boxes and cans.  There are the big box stores and the local chains and I love them all.   I've always liked pushing the cart through the store.  When I was small, Associated Foods had kid-sized carts waiting next to the grown-up carts... waiting there just for me.  I don't remember filling the basket with groceries or emptying it at the checkout counter but I can still remember how the ribbed black rubber felt under my hands as I steered it, very very carefully, up and down the aisles. Now, G'ma likes to leave her walker in the car and lean on the grocery cart.  It makes her feel mainstreamed, as if she's fitting in with the crowd, just as I did when I was 5.  I try not to dwell on the sad...

Once upon a time, a girl planned a trip.  To be more precise, she planned to join a trip created by the Ultimate Trip Planners (UTPs).  Knowing that her only responsibilities were to pack correctly and show up at the WallyWorld parking lot at the appointed time, the months leading up to their departure were filled with obsessing about rolling suitcases vs traveling teams' soccer bags and old hiking poles vs new ones.  Should she take long sleeves or short sleeves and would shorts keep her warm enough if the Gila Wilderness proved to be colder than weather.com predicted?  Which hat - the purple polar fleece or the hand knit beanie with the pompom - would be the most fun to pull out should the need arise?  Did she really need sweat pants and pajama bottoms and stretchy athletic pants or could she truly "pack lightly" as the UTPs requested?  A sweatshirt or another layer of long-sleeves .... decisions, decisions, decisions. As always, she began laying out th...

I rode my bike for the first time in a long time today.  I had books to return to the library and then I planned to head over to the pod-castle and visit with G'ma.  I was prepared - had my helmet and backpack and garage door clicker and cell phone and water bottle - and my new bicycle pump was easy and pouffed those tires up to a nice firm roundness.  I set off in the early afternoon sunshine, a slight breeze at my back, coasting down the hill and smiling.  Crossed at the green, not in-between, and it was only when the road began its ascent that the fact that the  only 2 gears available to me out of the 21 promised by the chains and the cogs on the derailleur and those clickers on the handlebars were impossible and who do you think you're kidding?    I heard Jillian Michaels  screaming at me to finish the hill finish the hill finish the hill and I did.  It took me a while to recover, and while I was resting by the side of the road I tho...

I'm off on an adventure this week.  The Happy Ladies Hiking Club has struck off for New Mexico and the Gila Wilderness.  We are in vans and SUV's and mini-station-wagons with coolers and hiking poles and sunscreen crowded into every nook and cranny.  There are no stores within a reasonable distance of our destination, and that is a good thing for everything except if you forget something.  We are nothing if not anal about not having everything we need all the time - that's why we are stuffed into these vehicles like circus clowns. I've prepared posts for you for this week, in case the promised wi-fi at the b&b is less than advertised.  We'll be hiking and touring and laughing and learning but I will not forget you, Dear Readers.  There will be something (pre-packaged or up-to-the-minute) here every morning at 6am Tucson Time all week long.   I'd never disappoint you! ***** NatGeo is my favorite cable channel.  The pictures are always pr...

We hiked up Ventana Canyon, Miss Marjorie and I. It was hot at 10am when we met where the Blockbuster used to be and it was hotter 20 minutes later at the Trailhead and then we started walking and the breeze decided that she was unnecessary so she left us for, perhaps, your neighborhood.  It was hot and not all that interesting as we walked the trail between private homes and the resort and then we came to the water. Yes, there is water in the desert.  There is still snow at the peaks of the Santa Catalinas but less than there was last weekend, when they were still skiing.  As the temperatures heat up and the snowpack melts, the water runs down the canyons.  We crossed and criss-crossed and rock hopped and didn't get wet and then we started to climb.  With 1300' of elevation change in a little over a mile of unstable and boulder strewn trail, we were passed by many 20-somethings carrying no water but passing us none-the-less.  Some were running. ...

I should review the settings on my email and blogging accounts more often than I do. Outdated email addresses should be changed to useful one). My email accounts should not forward to one another if they all share the same password. It's better to lose access to part of your life than the entirety of your life. Security Questions should never be a really important event right now. Trust me, you will not remember when you thought it up, let alone what it was. I really missed you guys today.   I'll be back on Monday with, no doubt, a post on just what went wrong today). Have a great weekend. a/b

Seret and I went on a Baked Goods Odyssey last month, two friends in search of unusual pastries.  Seret is amazing in many ways, not the least of which is her ability to take one bite of a doughnut and toss the rest in the trash.  I, on the other hand, had no compunctions about downing every last bite of that vegetable-glazed cakey sticky .... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? We'd done a bit of research, on-line and through degrees of separation from native Tucsonans with culinary talents and we had a general plan.  Once we started, though, it became obvious that we were making it up as we went along.  " OOOhhh look at that one" was all I needed to steer The Schnozz into the strip mall (it's all strip malls.... just like Long Island has become..... though I never saw a taco truck on Sunrise Highway.... but I digress...) and park in front of Ghini's Cafe . Park in front of it.  No worries.  No meters.  My choice of spots, even with...

I wrote the first episode of the Burrow exactly one year ago today. Since then, I have written 329 of these letters to the ether. 329 essays.  329 times when I decided that my thoughts were worth sharing.  329. That's a decent sized book. Not that I started out to write a book.... no way, no how, it's just not me.  I'm not a long term project kind of girl; crossword puzzles rather than jigsaw puzzles work for me.  I started because the Cuters, perhaps seeking revenge for my insistence that homework came before going to the park, convinced me that there was an audience out there for my bloviating. Seriously, when your 20-something children agree that " you are waaaay hipper than you think you are" it's time to sit up and pay attention.  And so I did.  And here I am.  With my 330th post I thank you, blogospherians, for reading and commenting and sharing my life.   Please notice that I did not say "sharing my journey."  It's importa...

It wasn't a long hike, but we were all tired.  It wasn't a strenuous hike, but we all felt it.  It wasn't hot but we were sweaty, it was windy but the little bugs were still hanging around.... it was a weird day. Though I've lived in Tucson for 45 months, today was the first time I'd ever taken the tram up to the top of Sabino Canyon.  My friends were shocked...... yes, as shocked as Claude Rains was shocked ..... that I had never shared the experience with visitors, that no one had taken me up the paved road 3.7 miles into southwestern heaven, that they had done it 5 times or every Spring and on and on it went.  But this is not a hiking post (I took neither my camera nor my GPS) but a meditation on  getting older.....staying fit.....ageism....the rights of the majority....being kind to one's friends.....and, once again, who decides? ** There's no one who doesn't like her.  We laugh about her, but we laugh about all of us.  She has secrets, but so do...